CompuServe Thread

Perhaps with that budget it might be better to get two machines in stead of one super PC, I have a P133 and a DX4 and 66, I build on the P133, but slave render on the other two, although they arn't networked just yet they soon will be, this way I can still build while rendering Stills etc, thus I get ebery working moment possible out of the P133 instead of sitting back and having to wait for it to render, of course it may be possible under Max and NT to run 3D's twice and render on one and build on the other, who knows? The big problem with two machines is that you have to pay for two amounts of RAM!, e.g. 32 min' in each, so that jacks the price up, Hope that helps matt

Kyle, >> Celebris XL … has dual pentium capabilities and also an option to add an ALPHA chip as its processor. << Sounds good on paper but from what I've heard the upgraded daughtercards end up costing you _far_ more than just upgrading the motherboard. Alan Iglesias might be able to elaborate on this – he has personal dealings with DEC. For this reason I'm not a fan of proprietary architectures. I like to get industry standard commodity priced components that can be swapped out for the least possible cost. Generally this means buying the fastest system that is readily available now and upgrading the motherboard when it makes sense to. I like to find a local dealer who can make systems for me the way I specify and who entertains the idea of upgrading motherboards possibly with a trade-in of the old ones. I suggest going with fastest dual Pentium capable system you can afford (don't buy the 2nd CPU yet) and don't skimp on RAM. Once MAX comes out and you're comfortable with it, get the 2nd CPU then because the price will be lower OR get more RAM whichever will result in the best speed increase. The 2nd CPU will give you an immediate 60-70% speed increase as long as you have sufficient RAM. I've found an 80% speed increase in Photoshop3 under NT (on certain filters) by adding a 2nd Pentium 100 cpu to my system.

In addition to MartinF's comments, I'd say that the DEC Celebris is an excellent, fully upgradable machine, Kyle. I bought one of the original PC/XL's early last year, mainly hoping to eventually easily upgrade to an Alpha, while keeping up with the Intel upgrades in between. Shortly thereafter, Intel changed the chipset to support the faster processors, and rendered some "easy" upgrade paths on my machine non-obtainable. I am currently trying to get my machine upgraded in the manner that was promised to me in the first place. At this time it looks *very* promising. The Celebris line, however, already *fully supports* single and dual fast Intel solutions as well as present and future Alpha upgrades, so you have no worries regarding the type of problems I am having. As the Alpha is perhaps the "end of the line" as far as upgrades may need to go, I'd say this machine was a very good bet. It's a little expensive, but the upgradability, built-in SCSI and IDE controllers, and excellent warranty may make it a good choice for you. I'd carefully weigh Martin's advice (I buy hardware that way, too) against what the Celebris line offers (and the cost, of course) and I think your way will become clear. Best of luck, -Alan